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gistenhose wrote:I thought there was a lot of symbolism in this episode.

Re the Melfi scene. I thought the tearing a page from Melfi's book was one. Melfi took a page from Tony's book when she turned the tables on him and fired him as a patient.

The steak recipe reminded me of the whole 'meat'/butcher thing with Tony's mother. It got her hot when Johnny Boy brought home free meat. Also at Satriale's Tony ordered an italian ham sandwich (capacole sp?). That was the meat that sent him into anxiety attacks.

Someone also mentioned the sizzling steak reminded them of Chris's last bbq.

More epidsode imagery was the motorcycle guy getting hit evoked the black kid hitting AJ's friend's car and then throwing it into traffic. The same image as Hesh's son-in-law going under the car. I believe it was about the collateral victims of crime.

White buck skin shoes...Paulie wore/packed them on the trip to Florida.

And finally the whole football coach/Artie/Tony thing with Test Dream.

elliot is the one who was perched on the edge of his seat, watching news broadcasts about the mafia giddy like a little a schoolgirl

elliot is simply jelous he doesn't get to treat tony soprano

I completely agree with you. Elliot is a 100 percent asshole, always has been. I've never quite understood why Melfi continued therapy with him. And now for him to be the instrument of her unprofessional termination with Tony just makes me totally depressed.

Dr. Stanton E. Samenow is pretty amused that he’s become the focus of "Sopranos" fans.

Samenow — as I told you the other day — was the author of the breakthrough 1977 study of psychotics that last Sunday forced Tony Soprano’s fictional shrink to dump him as a patient after seven years.

“The Criminal Mind” caused a stir when it was published 30 years ago by Samenow and the late Dr. Samuel Yochelson. On Tuesday, Samenow, who’s still working in the field, says Yochelson would be shocked that the paper has made its way into pop culture.

“I’m sorry he’s not here to see this,” said Samenow who, by the way, had never seen or heard of "The Sopranos" until last week when he received a flurry of phone calls from friends.

“Luckily, they taped Sunday’s episode and showed it to me,” he said. “The funny thing is, my friend’s wife wouldn’t watch it when she saw how violent it was.”

Samenow said that Dr. Melfi (Lorraine Bracco) is duped by Tony Soprano in therapy the same way he and Yochelson were years ago.

Psychotics — which is what Tony and his murderous mob pals are — are incredibly charming, Samenow told me. That may be one reason why fans of the show are bemoaning the fates of these “beloved” characters even though they are actually villains.

“We actually lived that study,” he said of the 14 years he and Yochelson treated criminals at St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington, D.C. Samenow recalled a party thrown by some of their patients for them at the conclusion of treatment.

“It was only later we realized they’d stolen all the supplies for it from the hospital,” he said.

And what about the fact that the study is 30 years old but was presented on the show as new?

Samenow can’t figure that one out, but he said, “When we first published it, it caused a stir. We were even featured on ’60 Minutes.'”

They were also the subjects of stories on “Donahue," "Good Morning America," "Oprah" and "Larry King."

Too bad Dr. Melfi didn’t see any of that before she took Tony on as a patient!

bobC--- some will win, some will lose,
some were born to sing the blues,
the movie never ends,
it goes on and on and on and on........

Melfi's letting Tony down should be no surprise. I'm sure this has been said, but like the ducks that flew away after Tony tried so hard to raise them in his pool, he now is, (simiar to parents who watch their kids go off to college never to return), an empty-nester. Unfortunately, in the life he has lived, his empty nest is a lot less sympathetic.
He lost his wife years ago, though she still hangs on in her hypocritical way of loving the luxuries but hating the lifestyle. He lost his strong, Italian-American son, he fought with Bobby at the cabin, never really had Janice as a loving sister to start out with, never trusted Paulie, he didn't trust Chris, even in death's grip, losing him to Hollywood & convinced Chris would be the one to turn him in, (though Chris would "follow T to death's door", he turned to his Consigliere earlier in the season, but we hear even he could never stand Tony, and, yes, now Meadow let's him down leaving the medical profession. So, yet, Tony is let down by Melfi.

Tony is alone, like Michael Corleone at the end of the Godfather II - fitting, because though he's wanted to take care of his family, like he did the ducks, everything he did in his life was the opposite of the life of Vito Corleone, the beloved Don of Godfather I. Tony is not that type of tragic hero. The only redemption, I felt, would've come through therapy, which is where I thought he would differ from a Michael Corleone, capable of killibg Fredo & only buying his redemption from the Church in the 3rd installment. With one episode left, and therapy now no longer an option, I don't see the "I get it!" revelation that Tony felt he had, when he cried out over payote trip out West. I don't think he's found the light.

Still, I would love to know what that revelation was, & if there are any who know how that can be tied to the last episode, in some sort of saving grace for Tony, if not in this world, but in another, please advise.

awpilot wrote:In the Godfather movies, oranges were used to foreshadow a death or attempted murder.

Slightly correct - in all 3 of the Godfather's, Coppola used oranges as a symbol of evil. Every character introduced holding one, from our first shot of Tessio at the wedding to the bowls in front of the Tattaglia's & Barzini's when the 5 families met. Vito picked the oranges when he was shot, Fredo was shown with one next to him visiting him at the hospital, Johnny Ola delivers one to Michael, yes, Vito dies with one in his mouth playing in the garden, and Michael needs oj with his diabetes.

Funny, when they show the young Vito in Godfather II, (DeNiro), he brings a gift home to his wife one night - a pear.

azzurri06 wrote:With one episode left, and therapy now no longer an option, I don't see the "I get it!" revelation that Tony felt he had, when he cried out over payote trip out West. I don't think he's found the light.

Still, I would love to know what that revelation was, & if there are any who know how that can be tied to the last episode, in some sort of saving grace for Tony, if not in this world, but in another, please advise.

There was/is no revelation. It was an hallucination while "under the influence." He didn't get it then, and he doesn't get it now. Tony's life is over. There will be no saving grace for him, even if he survives the last episode. Quite frankly, there shouldn't be one.

Put a fork in him he's done!

bobC--- some will win, some will lose,
some were born to sing the blues,
the movie never ends,
it goes on and on and on and on........

NEW YORK - Therapists, we've long known, are among the biggest fans of "The Sopranos."

So pleased were they with the credible therapy scenes between Tony Soprano, pop culture's most famous mobster/patient, and the appealing Dr. Jennifer Melfi, played by Lorraine Bracco, that the American Psychoanalytical Association once gave the show and Bracco an award.

But professionally speaking, they could only scratch their heads at the latest developments on HBO's hit drama, which aired its penultimate episode last weekend.

Just as Tony Soprano's life seemed to be imploding with dangerous speed _ in short, just when he needed some really good therapy _ Melfi and her own therapist made some highly questionable moves.

Not only therapists were distressed. Some patients were actually furious when they showed up for appointments this week, said one New York psychoanalyst.

"You wouldn't believe the outrage I am hearing," said Dr. Arnold Richards, who'd missed the episode, but was filled in by his patients. He was talking about a serious ethical lapse by Elliot Kupferberg, played by Peter Bogdanovich, at a dinner party full of therapists. Across the crowded table, the character callously revealed _ over Melfi's protests _ the identity of her star patient.

"Mind-boggling," pronounced Richards. "I do not recall ever being told the name of a patient in treatment."

Colleagues agreed. "That dinner party was just very upsetting to me," said Dr. Joseph Annibali, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst in McLean, Va. "What he did was outrageous. He's never had control of himself, and this just fits in with that."

Why did Kupferberg commit such a sin? He didn't think Melfi should be treating Tony, whom he considered a manipulative psychopath. Be that as it may, his disclosure was "a very egregious ethical violation," said Dr. Jan Van Schaik, chair of the Ethics Committee at the Wisconsin Psychoanalytic Institute.

"A patient needs to know that what gets said in the doctor's office stays there," said Van Schaik, who's never witnessed such a violation. "I've been at gatherings where people talk about patients in a more disguised form. Even that can be inappropriate. A good therapist should do the best they can to protect the anonymity of patients."

It's a shame, Van Schaik added, because "prior to Sunday's episode, 'The Sopranos' was the best portrayal in the popular media of a therapist-patient relationship." Annibali agreed: "We're so used to seeing therapists presented as incompetent hacks. Or as people who are more disturbed than their patients!"

What's been nice about Melfi, the Virginia therapist explained, is that she's a complex and caring figure _ she's not ideal, but she tries to help Tony even as she struggles with the idea of treating him.

That is, until this last episode, when she ... dumped him.

"We're making progress," Tony protested, genuinely shocked. "It's been seven years!" But Melfi had reluctantly read a study, brought to her attention by Kupferberg, claiming that therapy doesn't actually help sociopaths _ it further enables their bad behavior by sharpening their manipulative skills. Demoralized, guilt-ridden and almost speechless with hostility, Melfi literally showed Tony the door.

A tidbit that had some therapists buzzing this week: it turns out the study is a real one _ albeit hardly new _ from authors Samuel Yochelson and Stanton Samenow, psychiatrists specializing in the criminal mind. But the way the fictional Melfi shoved aside her patient was anything but real, therapists said.

"You don't just drop a patient like a hot potato, even if you conclude they aren't responding to therapy," Annibali protested. "She should have taken several months to do it."

For Richards, the development just didn't ring true. After seven years, "only NOW she figures this out? My sense is that there was some narrative purpose for (series creator David) Chase to end this relationship."

As in the fact that there's only an hour left to the entire story? That Tony's life is crashing down around him, and one by one, by death or rejection or his own murderous hand, he appears destined to lose everyone close to him?

Maybe. But Annibali said he'd heard that Bracco may be appearing in the final episode next Sunday. Which means there may still be time to reverse her professional missteps.

"My hope," Annibali said, "is that she and Tony will get together again."

But for one certified expert on both therapy AND "The Sopranos," that wouldn't make sense, dramatically speaking. Around halfway through the show's run, Tony's therapy started failing, said Dr. Glen Gabbard, professor at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and author of "The Psychology of The Sopranos."

Perhaps it was because Chase himself went through years of therapy, and has publicly expressed ambivalence about its usefulness. In any case, at the busy psychiatry clinic where Gabbard works, the talk this week is about how Melfi should have ended things with Tony years ago.

"The therapy had to end," Gabbard said. "It was getting more and more futile.